Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an actuating member that causes an elongated member for medical use to perform a predetermined operation and a medical device that includes the actuating member.
Background Art
In a medical field, an elongated flexible member has been used as a medical device for accessing a living body, for example, to provide medication into the living body, allow for suction or injection of various fluids, and allow for introduction of a medical apparatus into the living body. Prior to the introduction of the medical apparatus, this elongated member is inserted into a lumen of the living body (blood vessel or body cavity) and is guided to a target site such as a treatment site or a peripheral site thereof. In usage described above, in order to properly guide the elongated member to the target site, it is necessary to introduce the elongated member along a bending path such as the lumen of the living body. Therefore, in some cases, the elongated member may be used integrally with a actuating member capable of performing a bending operation when actuated by a user's manual operation.
JP-A-2008-142199 discloses an actuating member including a push-pull member to be connected to the elongated member, a pulley around which the push-pull member is wound and a handle which causes the pulley to be rotatably operated, and an endoscope in which the actuating member is incorporated. The actuating member rotates the above-described handle arranged on a proximal side of the endoscope around an axis orthogonal to an axial direction of the elongated member, thereby winding the push-pull member and performing the bending operation.
The above-described actuating member in the related art adopts a configuration where the actuating member is bendable by arranging the push-pull member to be wound around the pulley and changing an operation direction for pushing and pulling the push-pull member from a linear direction to a circumferential direction. Therefore, a relatively low rigid wire is used in the push-pull member. For this reason, there is a possibility that push-pull force cannot be satisfactorily transmitted to the elongated member via the wire.
In addition, the pulley around which the push-pull member is wound is arranged on an axial line of the elongated member so as to move the push-pull member in an axial direction. However, for example, when disposing a lumen which is continuous from a distal side to a proximal side of the elongated member, the pulley may interfere with the lumen. Accordingly, the pulley has to be arranged to be offset in a direction orthogonal to the axial direction. Therefore, an actuating mechanism becomes large, thereby causing a problem in that the entire apparatus becomes large as a result.